General+Public+License

  General Public License

  **Definition**

The General Public License also known as GPL is a license "intended to guarantee your freedom to share and change all version of a program-- to make sure it remains free software for all its users" [1]. According to Richard Stallman,creator of the GPL, "The idea of copyleft is copyright flipped over, And what we do is, we say, "this software is copyrighted and we, the authors, give you permission to add to it, but when you redistribute it, it has to be under these terms, no more or no less, so that whoever gets it from you, also gets the freedom to cooperate with other people if he wants to" [2].

 **History** The GPL was created in 1989 with the beginnings of Richard Stallman's GNU project. Richard Stallman wanted a license to keep his work protected and at the same time open for the public. [|He was against software patents] that restricted people from collaborating, sharing,and freely accessing source code. In turn, the GPL is the complete opposite of copyright licensing. Linus Torvalds joined the GPL movement when he made his [|Linux Kernel] public. Over time, the GPL has been modified three times to fulfill its legal power. The most up to date version is GPL Version 3 which was released [|June 29, 2007].One of the most important points of the GPL is the ability to permit users to collaborate with one another for different free softwares to make improvements. By doing this, people are able to help one another and fix problems that may hinder a program from working well.In addition, people who modify programs under the GPL are allowed to sell the redistribution and make profit if so they wish.

The licenses can be viewed under the following links: [|GPLv1] [|GPLv2] [|GPLv3]

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 **Four Freedoms** 1.Freedom to run a program for any given purpose 2.Freedom of analyzing how program works and modifying it. 3.Freedom of redistribution. 4.Freedom of improving program and sharing improvements with public.
 * According to the [|Creative Commons GNU General Public License site], GPL has four freedoms:**

Terms and Condition of the General Public License can be viewed at the [|GNU General Public License site]

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 * The Dangers of Software Patents**

1. Definition taken fom [|The GNU General Public License sit]e 2. Richard Stallman [|Quote from Revolution OS movie]

Photo 1: [|cc] [|Open souce street sign] by [|asvensso]n Photo 2: [|cc] [|Untitle]d by [|ello]a